09 January 2010

Avatar: Movie review

We've seen a lot of Hindi movies with English names, viz. Black, New York etc. But for the first time, an English movie with a Hindi name! And what a movie!

It has multiple themes - sci-fi, futuristic, war action, fantasy, romance & message for humanity. Its a brilliantly made movie - not only because of the technology used, and shown, in the movie; but also because all these different themes are sensitively inter-woven to make an extremely entertaining and paisa-vasool film.

James Cameroon switches gears from the past(Titanic) to the future(year 2154). By then, people of earth have frittered away all their natural resources, there is not a tree to be found anywhere and they are seeking minerals from other planets to survive. They target one such moon, belonging to another planet - Pandora. The vividness with which a parallel world has been brought alive along with its verdant greenery, earth-like creatures and tribal customs is mind blowing;. Yet it also gives a feeling that our own Earth was perhaps like this at the beginning of civilization. The movie has a bizarre amalgamation of an ultra-modern world complete with robots & state-of-the-art war ammunition and the rustic & spiritual world of the local Na'vi people. The movie flits between the two worlds in the form of the protagonist's 'Avatar'. The shrewd Earth folks have mastered the technology of creating 'Avatars' of human beings, who can breathe and look as the local Na'vi people. The strategy is to use this 'spy' to infiltrate the locals, gain their trust and thereby convince them to leave their paradise so that humans can steal the minerals below their soil. Somewhere along the line though, the sleeping 'humanity' creeps up on the protagonist and he helps the aliens to wage a war against his own race.

A beautiful movie - not only because of the breath-takingly lovely forest land and its inmates, but also in its message of anti-war and of protecting our Mother Earth. The dialog is quite potent in some places and the performances are excellent too. A must-watch movie, especially in a cinema hall - make sure to eat before going or carry your food in, as you will be glued to the seat once the movie begins!

I understand individual way perceiving things but Avatar as I see is a brilliant technical masterpiece, n all the reviews I read seemed that they fell short of words at some point.. but yours was different.